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Author Topic: Simple suggestion: Saving  (Read 935 times)

Iados

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Simple suggestion: Saving
« on: May 14, 2011, 11:48:03 am »

Currently, every time you select "Save Game", it closes the game.

Why not splitting the option? "Save game and continue" and "Save game and exit". No longer the need to return to the main menu every single time you want to save!
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NW_Kohaku

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Re: Simple suggestion: Saving
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2011, 01:17:37 pm »

That's because you aren't supposed to be "saving the game" as a backup, usually.

It happens just because the game is buggy and such, and so sometimes you really do need to reload a save because of a crash or severely undesirable performance, but you aren't meant to be reloading the game just because a dwarf died.

In the tradition of Roguelikes, you are meant to have permanent death, not a "savescumming" method of just reloading until you get through some slim odds through dumb luck.  (Of course, playing more than one game, where you rely upon knowledge you gained in the last playthrough isn't much different from a really far-distant savescum, but whatever.)
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blue sam3

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Re: Simple suggestion: Saving
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2011, 01:57:07 pm »

That's because you aren't supposed to be "saving the game" as a backup, usually.

It happens just because the game is buggy and such, and so sometimes you really do need to reload a save because of a crash or severely undesirable performance, but you aren't meant to be reloading the game just because a dwarf died.

In the tradition of Roguelikes, you are meant to have permanent death, not a "savescumming" method of just reloading until you get through some slim odds through dumb luck.  (Of course, playing more than one game, where you rely upon knowledge you gained in the last playthrough isn't much different from a really far-distant savescum, but whatever.)

Saving without exiting doesn't effect that. Exiting without saving does, but not vice-versa. It is identical to saving to menu then starting playing again, but faster.
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Patchy

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Re: Simple suggestion: Saving
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2011, 02:28:26 pm »

The save function is done the way it is to act as a deterrant to save scumming. It doesn't prevent it, and it's not supposed too, just discourage it. It is merely relying on human laziness to work.
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sockless

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Re: Simple suggestion: Saving
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2011, 10:17:05 pm »

That's sort of what autosave is for, so if your game crashes, you have something to fall back on.
The only reason that you would save and not exit is if you are about to do something that you might want to reload from before it happens. That's not in the ethos of the game.
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Asteranx

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Re: Simple suggestion: Saving
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2011, 03:00:23 pm »

The only reason that you would save and not exit is if you are about to do something that you might want to reload from before it happens. That's not in the ethos of the game.

I would disagree.  If you're plagued by frequent crashes for whatever reason, you'd logically want to save your progress equally if not more frequently.  The 'ethos' of the game is to be a consistent world where what you do stays done.  Having crashes set you back goes against that just as much as being able to 'undo' things by save scumming.

Call it insurance against potential instability.  It certainly wouldn't let you do anything you can't already do.

Like blue sam3 said, the suggestion is for saving without exiting.  You can actually already accomplish this by exiting (which also saves), then restarting.  Same net effect, Iados is just looking for a more automated/streamlined way of doing it, which wouldn't involve the long load times you get on larger fortresses, and could therefore be done frequently if you're worried about your stability.
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tolkafox

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Re: Simple suggestion: Saving
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2011, 03:44:59 pm »

Seasonal saves. It saves every season, if you need to save more than that then you have a problem that won't be fixed by the above suggestion. That's an instability that's not caused by the game but by your computer.

I've crashed once back in 31.16, fortunately for me it was only two months after spring. I redesignated the walls for my outside parameter and went about business as usual.
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